001like to call the meeting of february 22 2021 of the diamond school committee to order could you please stand for the pledge allegiance to the flag i'd like to welcome everyone this evening both of the few that we have here and also those of you at home uh for governor baker's audit suspending certain provisions of the mass of the open meeting law chapter 30a section 20 the public will not be allowed to physically access the school committee meeting members of the public can access the meeting via live stream at backslash www.youtube.com tv media in addition the event will be rebroadcast on dc tvs channel 9 and 18 on the following days wednesday and thursday at 5 friday at 6 saturday at 8 and on sundays at 2 p.m the school committee reserves the right to
002implement additional remote participation procedures and we'll notify the public of these procedures as soon as possible i'd also like to let you know that there are also other times that uh we will show up on dc tv where they have open slots and we greatly appreciate them uh roll call please ms gunther chris oliver shannon jenkins kathleen amarill here mary waite here on nunes i'm here and for those of you uh mr oliver and dr jenkins are both under the weather dr jenkins is attempting to join us uh on the live stream and we hope that they both feel better and get back here real quick our first order of business is the approval of the regular session and executive session minutes of february 8th 2021 i'll start with the regular session please i make
003a motion that we accept the regular session um minutes we got a motion by miss amaral second second by miss wade on the motion any discussion cheer hearing on all in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously the executive session minutes of february 8 2021. i'm going to attempt this i'm going to attempt to make a motion that oh gosh it just um i don't know if i can just plug it in and we'll fill it in that we set the minutes um up oh let's see hold them until that matters thank you making me nervous looking at the expert at that so we have a motion by miss amaral in the second time is wait from the motion any discussion hearing on all in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously at
004this point in time we have allotted some time for 10 minutes for public comment if you have any comments they're welcome during this comment section and also during the meetings uh if you have any comments uh please uh send them to uh wonderful recording secretary and that would be kathleen gunther g-e-n-t-h-e-i at dartmouthschools.org and we'll circle back do we have anything yet in wisconsin two rather three have been received so far i have forwarded to the committee members okay thank you and we'll circle back at the end thank you okay that being said uh some good stuff that we're always here and some personally is uh nice i enjoy and that is some recognition dr giffett okay thank you mr chair so um just a little background um we are a member of the south
005coast educational collaborative and as such member districts are invited each year to submit a name of one of our high school students that is deserving of recognition and a scholarship as well so we did have unfortunately you had to have a virtual meeting usually it's a nice celebration with luncheon and everything else but obviously it was a virtual meeting where all of the students from the area towns were recognized so tonight i'd like to recognize mr tebow to re to then recognize our student um who was chosen by the high school and her parents are here as well so we're really happy to have them here thank you dr gifford i'd like to thank dr gifford and members of the dartmouth school committee for the opportunity to present this year's dartmouth high schools this year's
006recipient of the francis w galishawa memorial scholarship which is awarded annually to one student from each of the schools that make up the south coast educational collaborative and while i know from speaking with the high school principals from across the area that the scholarship is appreciated by each of the south coast schools it holds particular uh meaning to us here in dartmouth um because as those of you um you may or may not be aware the scholarship's actually named in honor of the director of technology mr galashaw's uh father who was a founding member of the south coast collaborative so the award has special uh significance to us here at dartmouth because of that connection but this year dartmouth high school is delighted to be able to recognize a student who has demonstrated not only
007extraordinary academic achievement but who has also demonstrated an exceptional commitment to service and leadership within the dartmouth community when considering which deserving student we might select to represent dartmouth high school for this honor each year we pay particular attention to students who have led by example in service to all students that make up the dartmouth community including those with disabilities as we hold such service in the highest esteem and believe that such service aligns well with the mission of the south coast educational collaborative gives me great pleasure to recognize maya leonato as dartmouth high school's 2020 recipient of the francis w galicia memorial scholarship maya is a most deserving recipient of this tremendous honor as an exceptionally well-rounded student who has distinguished herself as a student athlete a student artist and as a caring compassionate
008member of dartmouth high school committed to leaving our school a little better than she found it as a student maya has earned marks that place her in the top 10 at dartmouth high school including a tremendous record of achievement in our advanced placement program to date maya has earned two a pluses four a's and a b plus in the six ap courses she has either already completed or is currently enrolled in all while being an active member of our school's environmental club medical careers club and a leader on the girls soccer and spring track teams as a student artist maya has earned two first place and one third place award at our annual k-12 art innovation showcase which is an adjudicated which is adjudicated by practicing artists from throughout the commonwealth and has also received
009the tufts university scholastic silva key award in digital photography but perhaps more impressive than her exceptional academic performance is her commitment to leadership and service while i could speak for at least an hour about maya's many leadership and service achievements i will highlight just a few of them which make her deserving of today's honor maya's commitment to leadership and service include service as a mentor to our new and incoming freshman students service as the founder a community ambassador and the president of the best buddies chapter at dartmouth high school service and leadership as the class of 2021 president her freshman and sophomore year service as a member of the youth task force hours of service at gifts to give as well as a service as a bell ringer for the salvation army founder of happy
010feet shoe drive and founder of empower which is a website aims that aims to spread positivity through inclusivity in the commonwealth in addition to her commitment to leadership and service maya has also been recognized as miss the miss quickeshan's outstanding teen as well as miss freetown's outstanding teen for these reasons and more dartmouth high school is proud to recognize maya leonato as our recipient of the francis w galisho memorial scholarship and wish her well when she continues her education in a pursuit in the pursuit of a career as an orthodontist congratulations maya and as well to mr and mrs leonato who are joining us this evening maya would you like to say anything i'm so excited miss emeril you're quite um an incredible uh young woman um and uh you know just thank you for
011sort of standing out in the crowd and and moving forward and kind you know it sounds like you're quite a leader um and you know on a personal note as a parent of a young man who you know the greater community doesn't always see his gifts because he can't speak but to know that there are allies out there like you to inspire others to follow in your footsteps to recognize the gifts that people with disabilities have so i hope you continue with that and thank you um yes and maya what uh wow what a great level of accomplishment you've uh given to dartmouth high it's it's amazing i can't wait to follow your journey as you move on in the next four years i'm sure you have some decisions ahead of you um but thank
012you there's so many accomplishments and it's going to be it's a great path that you've led for students to follow so thank you very much and congratulations yeah maya congratulations i guess my question a couple of questions i have is number one where do you how do you fit all of that in in a 24-hour day considering maybe you can sleep a couple of hours at night that's good where are you headed to school next year you know you you will definitely do well at northeast and there is no doubt about it and just uh we want to take a moment on behalf of the committee and i know mr oliver and dr jenkins is looking in type of deal we wish you nothing but the best and congratulations and good luck as you go
013forward and thank you for doing what you've done it's a pleasure thanks for coming thank you for sure you know we appreciate the fact that we had to postpone from a couple of weeks ago just because of the way things went so we you know appreciate you being flexible thank you thanks thanks you're more than welcome to hang around but please probably have you know some homework to do we let you go thanks again congratulations thank you thank you [Applause] all right now to some more good stuff it's all good tonight it's all good tonight no that's as always type of deal okay dr gifford spotlight on george h potter school all right so tonight we're very happy to welcome the potter school and of course we have principal mr porter as well as the
014assistant um melissa mchenry and an administrator in waiting or in training as they say i guess kristin martino to present the spotlight on potter well thank you dr gifford um for inviting us this evening so and good evening and we want to thank you all for this opportunity to talk about potter school during this um very unique 2020-21 school year um as dr gifford just mentioned i'm rick porter i'm the principal of potter school i'm joined by joined here at the table with melissa mchenry melissa is our new assistant principal at potter and if you walk the halls at potter school with staff or students they would say that was the best decision that i made this year she has been a fabulous addition to our staff in addition to melissa kristen martino who is
015a long time first grade teacher is joining us this evening as dr gifford mentioned kristen is um getting her administrative license so this is part of her intern hours so we're certainly hoping that right now on youtube her professor is observing this because this is her formal observation so yes to the technology folks um and although kristen melissa and i are speaking tonight this presentation is a collaborative effort of the amazing staff at potter school so for years it's been said that potter school is our happy place for our entire potter community but this year we want to talk to you about how it's also our safe place for learning so since march of 2020 the covert 19 pandemic has brought challenges like no other no other time for all of us who have been
016involved in education so even though the pandemic has brought these very unique challenges the solutions can be found in how we react to these challenges and as we go back and turn to the philosophies of pbis which is positive behavioral intervention systems and potter schools foundation for learning has always been grounded in our pbis plan known as our potter's p to the three plan when we went to revisit the plan we realized it was grounded in ways to create a safe and effective school something we needed now more than ever we again needed to help both the children the staff to focus on positive behaviors and positive responses during these challenging times in essence we have revisited our core values school-wide consistent beliefs for all students and staff and by returning to what we know
017we have tried to bring a sense of normalcy and consistency during a very difficult time so that meant the values of being kind being safe and being a learner and because we are positively potter our guiding principles are pause to be kind bought pause to be safe pause to be a learner now of course the students at potter school they love the animal paw print but we really think of the other meaning of the word pause and that means to stop and think what it means to be kind what it means to be safe and how is the best way to be an effective learner so kristen's going to talk about our first principle which is pause to be kind thank you mr porter at power school we try to instill an understanding that kindness
018matters and have our students embrace that in a world where they can be anything be kind we greet our students every morning during their arrival and we'll share a video shortly showing this in action we hold weekly social emotional learning meetings to address student attendance student mental health concerns and to ensure that we are supporting any family that might be in crisis this year we kicked off our p to the three positive plan by holding grade level assemblies outside maintaining social distance while having some fun we hold various theme days like pausing to be a learner all day and night where we wore our pjs and had a pajama day we also had a pirate theme day because we are pausing to be safe at par school we kept the safety thing going when we
019applauded our essential workers by dressing like them in order to be kind to our staff we have a newly created staff relaxation area to support our staff's well-being as well here are some pictures illustrating how we greet our students in the morning to promote a positive learning environment letting them know they matter and we care and here's that video we promised showing our morning arrival greeting a student coming right off the bus good morning welcome back keep those keep those horses in between yeah good work just kathy have a great day and now over to you mrs mchenry for pause to be safe thank you kristen and good evening everyone so i'm going to talk about our second principle which is called pause to be safe and obviously this is a very important one in
020the times that we are in so at the beginning of the school year in conjunction with the district mr porter and i created a potter hybrid planning committee to develop the potter safety plan for our hybrid model that we shared with students staff and our families so this evening we're going to share some of those safety protocols that were part of that plan the first one is to stay six feet apart now with elementary age students this might be a challenge for them to understand what a six feet look like so if you heard in the video that we just shared we tell the students keep a horse between you or an alligator or a motorcycle and in the picture you can even see we actually have a six foot ruler that we were using
021in the halls to help the students visualize what keeping six feet apart actually means in addition we encourage our students to frequently wash their hands and utilize the hand sanitizer that we have before they enter a room in the school and as they exit and that includes coming in from recess and going out for recess as well and most importantly we encourage everyone to wear their mask and i'll be honest at the beginning of the school year i wondered if our students would be able to do this and i wondered if i myself could even do this but i can say that students and staff have all risen to uh the occasion and and have been great at it including our littlest learners in our preschool program who were the first students to enter our
022building and they kind of showed us yes it can be done next we have some safety protocols for staff so here at potter we utilize our teacher assistants as substitutes to minimize outsiders coming into the building our teacher assistants are fabulous and learning the uh teachers google classroom and how to get in and out of that so this is very successful including times when we may have some staff who unfortunately have to be quarantined and they might be working from home but we utilize the teacher assistance in the classroom to assist the students to maintain their engagement in the google classroom with the teacher at home so big shout out to our teacher assistants and to mrs sandra chika our inter uh technology integration specialist who helps with the tech piece for our uh staff
023so who else supports our safe school well we couldn't do it without our fabulous custodial staff so nick chamberlain jessie sanders danny da silva a huge shout out to them they are constantly on the go cleaning high touch areas disinfecting desks cleaning bathrooms multiple times a day i'd also like to give a shout out to mr chamberlain our head custodian who also assists me getting ppe particularly sanitizer wipes for example out to our classrooms and out to our teachers along with our custodial staff we could not do it without the phenomenal fabulous i could go on and on about mrs paula lassie our school nurse she meets with mr porter and i daily to update us on covet cases students who may be quarantined she also assists us when we're interviewing staff to determine close
024contacts and she also works very closely with the board of health so she takes care of all of us and we just couldn't do it without her the next few slides are just some examples of our safety protocols and we're starting with we're starting with a young man who never needs a reminder to make sure he grabs his hand sanitizer before getting off the bus good morning pausing to be safe hi levi have a great day and although we have always wanted visitors in our building to see the wonderful things that our staff is doing obviously we can't have visitors coming in this year here we have a video showing how we safely allow visitors into the school if they ever need to come to pick up something or drop something off for a student
025at potter school our office has been reconfigured so that all that come to potter can feel safe let's go inside and take a look in our entryway we now only allow one family at a time who has come into potter's school our office has been outfitted with plexiglas to keep not only our secretaries safe but our visitors as well we've also come up with a way for families to get materials for their children even though most activities are done digitally there are some very important paper and pencil activities that must be given to students when they are absent families who come by and a contactless way to get these activities for their children and this next slide shows some pictures of our fabulous custodial staff starting on the left with just jessie sanders who helps
026deliver lunches and breakfasts at the end of the day for our students to take home for their at-home learning days so on top of all that cleaning he's also doing that for us and here's our head custodian nick chamberlain sanitizing like he does every day the door handles multiple times throughout the day and the next slide is a video of our custodian danny de silva and what sanitizing the desks at the end of the day after school what that looks like because many people wonder what does that cleaning look like well here's what it does and now back to you mr porter thank you mrs mckenna i'd also like to add we just didn't have a picture of it but um our new cafeteria manager at potter school this year sylvia mullanson has been another
027amazing addition she is one delivering the lunches as well as with help from the custodial staff and also with her staff linda and renee they have also done just an amazing job um so the next principle is pause to be a learner so despite the challenges of the pandemic children are learning and we will share with you some data in just a moment our incredible staff has revisited all aspects of their own instructional model to meet children's needs during this unprecedented time as always we look at data to drive our instruction but we have to recognize that some of the data points do have an asterisk next to them as there are many variables that impact their validity this year student attendance the fidelity of interventions when staff are asked to take over other classrooms
028technology challenges and also the context of how we are learning this year makes comparative data less useful so the most important data point we can rely on is a teacher's professional judgment they know their students best so when deciding on intervention services we rely heavily on what the teachers seeing every day with their students all of our teachers have become technological wizards as it relates to google classroom giving families a consistent platform as it relates especially to at home learning as a district we have redesigned our specialist schedule art pe music etc so that the teachers at a grade level will have the same prep time every day to be able to collaborate with their grade level colleagues so if you walk the hallways of part of school or spend some time in our repurposed
029cafeteria you will see makeshift professional spaces that have been created socially distant so that teachers can engage in this level of collaboration because consistency is important we do our best to make sure that those special areas are always covered so the children have pe and health and the teacher does get the prep time a huge shout out goes out to our substitute teacher anne lacoste this year she started the year as our substitute pe teacher and she's currently our substitute health teacher also to many other staff who are wearing many different hats one example our art teacher beth nedo she works tuesday wednesday thursdays but frequently she will come in on a monday and friday to fill in for someone who happens to be out so like i said all teachers are wearing many different
030hats this year they're thinking outside the box because it's the best way we can keep this ship afloat for the benefit of our students many of our staff meetings this year we're using a vertical team collaboration approach so that staff can work with staff members they don't normally work with on a daily basis this has helped to promote creative solutions as it relates to at-home learning and synchronous instruction between the cohorts and as always we have become skilled pipe cleaners because we are remaining very fluid and flexible so here are some examples of our fabulous staff hot at work they have come up with creative solutions for the at-home learning they've thought of ways to bring the cohorts together and they have made student spaces warm and inviting for learning while still promoting the six
031foot social distancing rule and i have to say that became really evident to mrs mckendree and i before the kids came in when we took a look at the preschool classroom where three and four-year-olds are going to be we would normally have tables in learning spaces and a rug and we saw nine student desks desks that had to be adjusted to fit their little heights those teachers not just in preschool but in the other grade levels they have taken those spaces and made them look kid-friendly so it's a testament to their hard work to make the kids feel warm and invited so here's the data we were talking about so we continue to use the star data benchmarking system to track student learning now because all students k-5 participate in star benchmarking every six to
032eight weeks it does provide us with consistent data when tracking student progress so this particular slide shows us information on students throughout our entire school who are at or above the grade level benchmark and for students who are in need of urgent intervention so if you look at the numbers on the left in the fall star told us that we had 66 percent of our population performing at or above grade level in reading and 74 percent of our student population performing at or above grade level in math when we looked at the winter data we were hoping to see that number rise meaning more students were performing at or above grade level benchmarks as you can see in reading we saw our student population go from 66 percent to 73 of our students who are
033at that or above grade level and in math we saw the number increase from 74 to 82. so conversely when looking at the data on the right side of the slide you want to see that number go down meaning less children require urgent intervention meaning that they are responding to the high quality instruction and as you can see comparing fall to winter we are seeing less kids needing intensive intervention now when we drill down into that data there are always areas that we need to grow and as mentioned earlier there are a lot of variables attached to the data this year due to these times but we can say that our kids are learning they are making effective progress and we are thrilled about that and one thing that hasn't changed we strive to make
034learning fun despite these obvious challenges as evident in these pictures here they even are learning and all that snow we've had so we've having a good time and learning too and despite the pandemic we are keeping our potter traditions alive most important of these traditions that children await every year is the arrival of albuquerque turkey at our annual thanksgiving day assembly so albuquerque did arrive this year just with some adjustments he visited each classroom outside their windows and was able to make a virtual appearance at our online assembly later in the day as we sang his traditional entrance song and i again it's a theme i'm going to revisit but it's something that mrs mchenry and i truly believe we cannot stress just how amazing the staff has been during this exceptional year as the
035year has progressed our teachers recognize the importance of getting the two cohorts together beyond just morning and afternoon meeting recently most of our teachers have engaged in synchronous teaching with both cohorts in the first slide we see second grade teacher lynne pimentel teach a math lesson with her in school students along with the students learning at home okay so right now we are playing a jeopardy of the game 58 minus 10. go ahead and solve that when you got it friends at home put your video put your um whiteboards up for me to see my friends at school put your whiteboards up for me to see is one of those map facts we learned an easy mount back to solve so mason solving it on that oh i like what you're doing you're breaking apart
036your numbers there mason nice all right oh looking good gavin all right looking good so what are we solving for in the second video fourth grade teachers christine oliveira along with special education teacher michelle diaz bring both their cohorts together for a review jeopardy style game four a in cohort b cohort a is on the computer while cohort b is here in class and they are solving for the problem tim bought nine giant cookies each of which cost four dollars how much money did tim spend so right now it is cohort bee's turn to answer they're do so it went back and forth i don't know if you could see it with mrs pimento but on her desk was also her laptop where she was engaging with her students there as well so by doing
037more synchronous teaching not only are students engaging in more instruction but we continue to build community with both cohorts coming together it has had a positive impact on learning but we are still following the safety guidelines now here's mrs martino to give some more shoutouts thank you again mr porter we'd be remiss if we didn't give a huge shout out to our potter school teaching assistant at potter school our tas are fabulous they are some of the most flexible hard-working individuals you'd ever meet they are the true unsung heroes of potter school here are just a few of them jen roulard doing a data collection activity that she actually prepared and led herself joyce braga working one-on-one with a student needing a little extra support in the hallway kim morin leading a reading group in
038first grade and theresa goya working one-on-one with a student as well our true unsung heroes of potter school melissa thank you kristen as mr porter discussed on a previous slide yes our students are learning and they are certainly reading and dare i say they're reading more this year than in the past despite the pandemic so our students have the opportunity to have tangible books in their hand but our district and our teachers have come up with online resources that make books available to students both during the day when they're in school and at home on their at-home learning days some of these programs include epic my on and bitmoji classroom libraries just to name a few and although we had to use our library room in at potter for a different purpose this year our
039fabulous library assistant mrs amy jasmine came up with a wonderful way for book borrowing to still happen in the school just this time we're bringing the books to them as opposed to them visiting the library so let's hear what mrs jasmine has to say hi i'm amy jasmine the library ta at potter and this year since the students can't come to the library we've set up a mobile book borrowing system so we can bring the library safely to them in addition our reading specialist wendy clark and kerry kagan are still able to maintain services for students who require more support in reading through small group interventions but in a safe environment in their rooms so here we have wendy clark describing how this works hello everyone welcome to the reading room my name is wendy
040clark i'm one of the reading specialists with carrie kagan we share a room as you can see our air filter is right here and each student has their own box to work in they all wear their masks we are six feet apart they each have their own bag with reading tools at the end of each lesson we have a certain routine where they come it's right here on the wall miss kagan has her own they have to stand over here on their colors while we clean every desk so that we're safe we have even during remote students are attending participating and progress is being made thank you for joining us and happy reading hello everyone welcome to the reading cheers again at potter our special areas continue to be places of learning safety and fun
041in the first video beth nedo our art teacher will describe what art looks like in a safe environment hi there this is mrs nedo here and i'm here in second grade and my friends are painting today we're having a great time together we're learning a value scale and how to create a valentine with value and we're keeping safe by maintaining our social distance we're wearing our masks and we're using disposable materials so that we can be safe all right my friends thanks for coming to visit us have a great day and the next video is a sampling of of mrs donahue's gym classes and what that looks like at potter back to you mr porter now you've heard enough from us but let's hear from some of our potter kids they can tell you the
042best how why potter is their safe and happy place potter school is my happy place because it's very easy to make friends here potter is my happy place because i love art and music and i love to see my teacher potter school i think power school is a happy place because there's a lot of adults to talk to and they keep everyone safe the people at night they come and they clean the whole school while we're at our houses getting comfortable and getting ready to go to bed potter school is my safe place because it's pr i am protected from strangers inside of it potter is my happiest place because i like art and i love seeing my teachers it's so cute powder school is my happy place because i can see my best friends
043and my favorite teachers how do we stay safe at potter school oh we plug we put our masks on we lose your hands we stand and again the real superheroes are part of school are the amazing staff that make up our village they come in each and every day during these most uncertain times because they are proud of the village in the community that we have created for our students every position that you see up there plays a vital role in the everyday lives of our kids it is these people who are making a difference and who are contributing to our happy and safe place so to end our presentation tonight we wanted you to hear from one of those amazing superheroes here is long-time potter school teacher assistant jen roulard reading one of her
044poems to tell you her thoughts on the importance of creating a safe and happy space for students to feel safe is to be happy to be happy is to feel safe in my eyes you can't have one without the other essential ingredients for the education of a child a necessary environment for the success of an educator to spend my day with the assurance of both is a blessing a privilege an honor it reflects my ability to teach to connect to listen to encourage to celebrate the students that surround me because their eyes are very telling expressing exuberance in an aha moment expressing calmness in the comfort of belonging expressing gratitude for being understood and expressing a never give up attitude because mistakes are part of learning here we are safe to make a mistake because
045here when we try we are happy and we thank you for virtually visiting fodder school this evening thank you very much very good thank you mr border miss mchenry and mrs martino i'll open it up to my colleagues mrs amaral sure great presentation you never disappoint great job kristin um for the record for your professor no i mean just great job i i love what you always do in your in your school and in the way you feel the way your students and your staff historically feel supported and and you know your long time focus on social emotional health of everyone so that to be expected it was a great presentation i loved how you pointed out that data because of course you're hearing from families who are just so concerned about their students learning
046because it's different and much like you know the emails we get about parents frustrated that we're that we're um in a hybrid you know model and and all of that goes into that you know we get that but um yeah it's just really just really great presentation i was wondering if there are opportunities for you and how you've gone about i don't know how many students are virtual but how you maintain some sort of connection with those families in terms of the students that chose virtual like the families that chose virtual learning for their students do they still receive newsletters and that sort of thing from you to keep to keep feeling part of the community the one thing that mrs mchenry and i do and this really it was the brainchild of katie paveo
047the principal dimelo we do send out in weekly uh family email newsletter jess if anything to let them know what the cohorts are for the next week and we also give them you know bits of information we we made a very conscious decision not to send that out though to the virtual learning academy students from potter just because we didn't want to confuse them but that being said we have maintained a very close relationship with the um the staff in the virtual learning academy to assist them with any students that may need additional help i know mrs mchenry has been working with our potter school pto president um to see what things we can do starting in the spring because what we're going to have to remember come september where fingers crossed things are going
048to be somewhat normal for those children that chose virtual this whole year they will have not been back inside a school building since march of 2020. that is a long time so we have made a commitment to our community that we will work with them to develop some sort of protocol and how we transition back those students who chose virtual but also those students that chose to home school and for those families that had chose to go to a parochial or private school so we are working on a plan probably starting in the spring to reach out to those families now we can best support them that's really wonderful to hear that's sort of in my work circles that's what we're talking about is supporting like the process of of reintegrating and and and it's
049really got to be a process it does you know it's it's uh as quick as things ended in march last year you know we just have to be sensitive and and show some grace and be flexible around getting the things back into the mix we all want that but it's there's got to be a process so thank you i don't really have anything else i enjoyed your presentation thank you very much yes also thank you very much for that presentation i think for the families who are watching it just gives such great insight i think interspersing the slides along with the video was just fantastic i mean even just i hadn't seen you know someone actually cleaning a desk i mean just you know we talk about the electro you know the static sprayers but
050just to see it and then just to see those you know cute little testimonials at the end and i've been in your building you know you know as part of a program and it's you know it's a warm you know wonderful place to be such great energy and i think you know as i'm listening to the the certain kind of buzzwords that come up or the key words you know safe happy but um you know flexible you know you certainly are seeing so much of that you know and especially as you mentioned from the tas who are kind of coming in but everybody all the staff you know um beth nato coming in as an art teacher and the next thing you know as a uh she's a gym substitute you know and it takes
051a lot of um you know grace and pride in what you're trying to do together at potter to like really you know put forth that kind of commitment um and then you know having had you know kids have gone through the elementary you know consistency like you said i mean that for these kids having that stability you know to know that okay i'm not in school this day it's been confusing but you know when they come to school they're going to be graded off the bus i mean i think you showed that so well that we're going to do these same things we have these traditions that happened last year might look a little different but that's okay um i think that messaging is just so important that these kids are hearing like even if
052things are different they can be good different too and we can kind of make the best of this situation and seeing adults in their lives um you know mirror that i think is is really important um one question i did have as i and i'm just kind of curious as you know you were presenting the synchronous learning and i was seeing it in some of the classrooms which i think is phenomenal and i know how hard i must how hard that must be again with the littlest learners just to keep their attention and you're you're doing it with two different groups when the teachers that who are committed to that are they doing that all day are they having i'm kind of curious about how they set that up are they asking those kids to
053come you know who met in the morning meeting are they staying a little longer or are they coming back at a later point in the day like how is that being like orchestrated because i would imagine it's hard like sometimes to get those kids back and saying like 11 o'clock who are working at home i i think it depends and the neat thing about it is is that um our focus in the fall was really on the at-home learning so our vertical team meetings were teachers getting together to say what kind of activities are you promoting at home and we would suggest that you know if you certainly want to try some synchronous teaching with the other cohort by all means do that i think some teachers started by like you saw that review jeopardy
054game and that kind of way there or they started with like a science lesson that wasn't as critical for example as reading and math would be but i think the key that happened for some of our teachers the first two weeks after the christmas vacation we were remote learning and i think they saw the benefit of those kids you know being engaged every single day and also you can't imagine the amount of planning that teachers have to do for the hybrid model it seems like on the surface would be whatever i'm teaching on day a i'll teach on day b it's not because those cohorts don't stay right in sync so i think when they saw that there it got some of them like gee how can i do that but again it was organically
055from them so for example we have some teachers who will be meeting with their um other cohorts three times a day so they may do a lesson with both cohorts from 10 to 10 30 at 10 45 and because mrs mchenry and i set up the teacher assistance schedule it's a um one teacher system for two classrooms they actually see provided we don't need them for covering classrooms they see a teacher system a little bit more than they did in the past so then when the teacher now when they're done teaching the lesson is working with the kids in front of them the teacher assistant may go off to another part of the building with her chromebook and continue the support that those kids would need so that's one example where some of them are
056doing it but we have really encouraged them to what works best for you um and like for example tomorrow we have our staff meeting and that's their vertical discussion they're going to get together with teachers at other grade levels because one thing i think we noticed this year because of the social distancing we were noticing that we were almost like plotting ourselves like the first grade teachers are always together the second grade teachers there's not a lot of that interaction because there's not all that walking around so with these vertical team meetings it gives them that opportunity to hear what other grade levels are doing so i'm sure they'll share some more ideas on that as well as well yeah and i think that sounds you know again i you know another you know the
057vertical integration i think you know especially since we know that we're gonna well again the star testing is very positive you know i was really enthusiastic to see those numbers because again you know we've heard you know people are saying you know i and they feel with their their students that they're not progressing but to see that again the numbers are showing that there is a lot of progression in a lot of and we know there's a lot of learning but to see it in you know on paper so to speak i think is really helpful but i um i think just you know for the teachers to have those communications between grade levels again just to know what maybe the students wouldn't have covered you know is there anything that's going again to have
058that you know between a first grade and a third grade teacher second you know just to have that um connection is is really important right now so i do want to say with the data though i mean so though that was an example we gave you with our um kids that are at the benchmark are higher and those kids are most urgent we've looked at those two groups there okay um the data's not always that consistent across the entire um sphere of things and that's okay that's what we dive down to look at it but i think we have to remind ourselves yes our kid's learning yes they are but we're still in a pandemic and this is not the most ideal setup so what teachers are going to have to do families are going
059to have to do you have to readjust we can't say that kids are in a typical situation so we can't expect them to be typical learners it doesn't mean that we don't work very hard and be creative but we're going to have to have a little bit of a readjustment because this is just such an unprecedented time and i think we were thrilled that you said there is movement there is progress but it's really fair i think to put that message out too and say you know we're going to support these kids you know and then we we're we're aware of the realities and we're not going to sugarcoat it i think that's you know certainly fair and that's you know an important message so but thank you very much excellent presentation thank you not
060much that i not much that i can add that my colleagues haven't you know job well done and it was exciting to uh to see that yeah i agree with you know how they spray a desk and how they're cleaning and you know the the little things that go on behind the scenes type of deal with the students and the staff so my hat's off to you and mrs mchenry and mrs martino i hope your professor was watching and gives you a pluses if not let us know we'll uh let them know that uh you did a wonderful job and it should be a double a plus i agree so but thank you very much mr newman's if i can just say on the custodial front a real shout out to mr kiley because we
061were able to with our four-hour custodian increases hours this year to eight and that has made a big difference because that that was part of our biggest concern how would we get everything sanitized for the next day and just having him there an additional four hours has made quite a difference yeah good great so yeah mr oliver sent a text he just said to please let you know that it was a wonderful and thoughtful presentation and he's very happy to see that you are trying to keep things as normal as possible stick to your traditions etc despite the hybrid model and everything else that goes with it but i also i just like to pick up on a few things that you know again it it's not only the potter school but just throughout the
062district the the out-of-the-box thinking that all of the principals and the staff have had to do as we continue to be flexible and fluid as we said but the behind-the-scenes work that goes on i think this really captures it well um the daily juggle of having a substitute here there are everywhere and they've really been really really we don't have to worry about it most like more time than not we don't even think about it we look at the absentee list sometimes we'll reach out and say we're fine people have just had you know a real can-do attitude and have just dug down deep and and to get the job done it's really nice to see that the teachers are continuing to expand that synchronous learning on their own organically as you said and just
063some of the things that come out even throughout the district the what you've mentioned all the folks that have really dug in to really help out but the technology experts we've developed the um having a specialist schedule with pe music etc many districts i know of eliminated that completely that's how they've been able to offer more class classes and have more kids in at a time because they we decided that was important for kids to continue to have music etc and then the effort that goes into when students are quarantined to continue to support them in various ways the teachers providing extra work or putting things on their google classroom the kids remote whatever it might be they're getting it done and then lastly i just want to mention once again the focus the continuing
064focus on mental health of not only the students but the staff as well so um they've done a phenomenal job and as i said throughout the district we've just seen all of the folks really step up and yeah and get that done so thanks thank you thank you thank you all right next on the next on the presentations was going to be a uh discussion on the fy 22 budget with the wonderful assistant superintendent of finance and operation but um we're going to pass over on that for a second till our next meeting and speaking of that uh a you two ladies available next monday night to have a special meeting and other because what i'd like to do is what we'd like to do is it would be basically just on the budget and
065also we'll cover it up uh more in depth go over to update yeah does that work for you mary that's awesome yeah um probably probably yeah yeah okay in the evening though right oh yeah 6 30 normal normal time for me that'll be my first okay we'll circle back to that okay so we'll take care we'll take care of that until okay that's fine uh old business dr gifford yeah so as you mentioned um you know obviously with two of our members not being able to attend tonight we thought the budget as well as the discussion of bringing more students starting to bring more students back full time uh combining the cohorts was um a very were two very important discussions so we're going to hold those off to monday but what i will mention
066just so folks know and will be prepared for this in-depth discussion next week dr jenkins and mr oliver and i did me and mr kylie and we included mr misho in a meeting this week just to kind of start laying the groundwork on what might what might we be able to do to start bringing more and more students back um so without going to a lot of detail just some of the things that we're thinking of course is starting with our youngest learners um we i we always worry so much about reading especially um the skills but also the real focus on the social emotional and we all understand and recognize how much our kids are struggling um not just here everywhere so whatever we can do to start trying to create even what you
067just saw some normalcy even more and starting that that that um effort to bring them back we have some good things happening for us um we've seen some downward trends now with the virus and i believe dartmouth went into the yellow which is and the lumbers were very very low this last week again we'll see what happens after the holidays we're monitoring everything all the time we have i think a proven success with following safety protocols in our schools we still to this day as far as i know we have no hard evidence of transmission in our schools student to student staff to staff just it's just not there our response to cases that have happened has been very effective we quarantine when we have to we are in contact with the board of health
068we make good decisions and i think that's been important and kept us able to even keep our hybrid model running as effectively as is as you've seen we've run successful sports program our music program kids are out there participating etc um we obviously have things to think about that's what we're going to be more prepared but we'd like to make a plan because we'll have to look at simple things not so simple as desks because we shifted from desks to tables a long time ago now do we need more death so the inventory will have to be taken bus safety and transportation as we all know the bus the transportation guidance was changed so that elementary students there's no capacity on that but we still want to make sure there's safety going on on the
069buses in um classroom setups etc so i have asked the principals and again i this is um you know we will have a big discussion on monday but i just want to lay it out there that we're starting to make a plan i've asked the principals to look at the classrooms for the younger students to start slowly and we'll decide what that might look like and how we can start to get some of those kids in so like i said it's we know it's a too big of a discussion to have without two of our members here um but i want folks to know that we are planning to the best of our ability to start that we're in the conversation let's put it that way and have a draft plan in our heads that
070we'll talk more about next week beautiful okay thank you very much that we could possibly get mr michoad here next monday would that be possible i can i i will i will check if he can zoom in for us or i mean just for you know just for that part if we can just get his insight but i agree i think it's a great it's a really important move then yeah to have this conversation next and i know you know the vaccine thing and we have all those issues going on now we can't do them here and all but this there's a lot to consider but i just you know i think all of us and i know when we spoke to dr jenkins and mr oliver whether people uh agree on whatever protocol or
071process we might use i think we're all in agreement that we really need to get some kids you know we've we've got to make that effort and um but and there's just one more thing i just want just want to say you know you hear all the stuff out there that every other school is in this so that is absolutely not true i know schools have made decisions based on their size of their schools um again i just mentioned i know of some that eliminated for example phys ed and music and art teachers and made them move them to be classroom teachers so they could have more classrooms so people made the decisions that were right for their districts we're very happy with the decisions we've made we think you know we've done the everybody
072as you just saw has done a great job but we all understand we want we want all our kids eventually back right back yeah okay good okay um i don't really i i um i said this is gonna be yeah we're talking about this on monday anyway yeah so we can yeah i mean i don't really yeah i'll save it for monday yeah i don't really have anything i just had and we'll have more of a kind of more of a little bit of a plan of um at least some of those things that we're already planning for you know we couldn't you can't just say next week oh by the way tomorrow we're starting that's the point we want to have a plan in place which we pretty much do but um if things
073shift and change and we have to back off on that then one one thing i do have if you don't mind just with that said in in your planning you probably have already thought of this but of course you've got those families we all want our kids in person you know fully obviously and parents are frustrated and they can vent their frustration i understand that um but for those families who are really concerned about the health and safety and chose virtual so when once we sort of make a plan and stick with it to move in person we talked about recovery and getting back into the swing of things will those families still at least for the year be able to stay in that virtual platform absolutely and we wouldn't recommend it especially at the
074elementary level okay switching because the classroom's just been functioning 100 yeah so yeah yeah thank you i think this goes back to the question i asked yeah mr kylie way back if things had changed for january just for grins and giggles how much time do you need to right get the schools back going so that's you know three or four days anyway so which is fine very good okay um new business superintendent yeah i don't obviously we're on vacation so i'll only mention two things um march four i think i i sent you the links to things that are happening but two of the newer things were i'm really happy to see the tedx talks are happening um they'll start early in the morning they'll be there are youtube links for that but um you
075know i've attended so many here when over the years and they're just wonderful to see the kids get up there and do the job that they do so those will be virtual of course so i sent you the leaks and on those and um just the other thing the cushman uh pre-k virtual orientation is happening tomorrow night and that's on our facebook page as well it's um and on the district website the the information on that and people received it in their backpacks so those are for folks that applied for our pre-k program and um it will be taped for others that miss it anyway so that's it as i said it was vacation so back to it now back to the grind yep okay report of the chair well i wasn't planning on just
076a couple of things that i uh normally would have talked about if i was sitting over there uh i know fall 2 started up today oh yes sports and that type of deal so you know the football cheerleading indoor outdoor boys and girls indoor track being held outside i'm glad you mentioned that because um they uh they did do the the hockey with fans and um mr chris fully said all in all it went it went well so yep okay we'll keep trying that's it yeah you know good luck to uh good luck to those students as uh they get into this for the next two months and hopefully the weather will cooperate so they're not trying to play football in six feet of snow that type of deal also too uh believe it or
077not the indoor percussion and color guy shows started up uh this past saturday with their virtual shows i don't know how they went i talked with mr tonight and he said it went well so which is good good but uh other than that that's what's up there anybody have anything else nope okay thank you miss gunther do we have any other comments besides the couple that you talked about ahead of time that you had sent us no no other comments okay thank you very much okay we uh set our next meeting special meeting for next monday night that is going to entail uh just the budget and a covet 19 update and in person here in person here 6 30 type of deal and then uh we're going to be three weeks in a row
078because then we also have monday march 8th which is a day that the students won't be in school that day correct that's a teacher in service day that the month yeah yeah so but we'll be here awesome because they'll be here so the school will be open that type of deal so we'll have that that being said we have uh the executive session tonight has been cancelled no uh no need no need to have that anything else doctor no no i have nothing to do kylie you don't have anything good okay so with that being said the chair will entertain a motion to adjourn second move by miss amaral second by ms wait on the motion any discussion chair hearing none all in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries unanimously thank you very
079much everyone have a good evening be safe thank you oh